1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to a process and an apparatus for the production of elongated pasta products, for example lasagna, wherein the pasta products are produced via a pasta production apparatus in parallel lines, that is in series, are dried and, when solidified, cut into packing length and readied for packaging.
With all forms of long pasta, particularly with lasagna, the form stability, the cutting to length and the manipulation of the product until packaging, present particular demands. The main difficulty resides in bringing the individual products from the pasta apparatus into a consumer package, undamaged, in the required length and number.
2. Discussion of the Background of the Invention and Material Information
Lasagna are elongated, thin, dried, pasta bands and due to this form are subject to greater danger of breakage. The so-called special products are, up to this time, most often still packed by hand, in portions, into the consumer package. The advantage therein lies in the careful manipulation of human hands and the simultaneous visual inspection for possible defects or qualitative deficiencies of the product. This hand packaging however limits the output of the installation and makes the end product more expensive. Depending upon the production process, often many defects occur, particularly with flat products, already prior to packaging, which disrupt packaging and annoy the consumer.
Many solutions for the automatic packaging of such special products have already been proposed. For example, noodles, as hollow products, are packaged similarly to spaghetti. For this however, the production apparatuses must be changed for the "handling" at each product change and adapted thereto at a relative great expenditure.
The only functioning automatic packaging of lasagna, which is known in the art, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,975. Lasagna is prepared in series, corresponding in number to those hanging on a drying rod; cut by a noodle-cutting machine into two equal lengths while moving therethrough and transported by a pocket conveyor to a cutting unit end; transported from the upper surface of the conveyor to the lower surface of the conveyor and loaded, from there, into an intermediate magazine or storage area. The intermediate storage area has at least as many portion compartments as the number of pasta strips or bands that hang on one drying rod. Once the desired number for packaging into a consumer package has been located in the portion compartments, the entire series of portions is released to a packaging conveyor. During the filling phase of the intermediate storage area there is a sufficiently large time span wherein the packaging conveyor successively moves one portion compartment forwardly in a step basis, for the individual packaging of the portions at a transfer position at the end of the packaging conveyor. The usual lengths of the pasta strips, hanging on the drying rods, permit the production, during cutting, of two length of lasagna, next to each other, so that corresponding to the solution set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,975, includes adjacent, twin intermediate storage areas and a twin packaging conveyor.
The main deficiency of this solution lies in the difficulty of inspecting the products as well as in the concept of the single packaging. Even though the intermediate storage area permits a quasi continuous operation of the cutting apparatus, the single packaging finally limits the entire working capacity of the production line. Only even numbers of pasta products of each portion are possible. The problem of broken products is not solved.